The work is still moving along. We had a new family come to church for the first time. Two weeks ago, we were talking to them on their front porch just begging them to come to church since they had nothing else going on. They didn't go that Sunday or the next, but came this last Sunday!
The Martinez family is still doing really well, but they had some conflicts in their schedule this last weekend. We will most likely need to push their baptism out to the next month, but they are solid!
With Julia, we were able to meet with her one time last week and teach a lot more of the commandments. She has a really strong desire to get baptized, but sometimes the family is a little more inconsistent than we would like with being able to meet with us and coming to church. She pretty much just needs her interview and we will be praying that she can get baptized this weekend.
We had 3 exchanges in a row from Wednesday to Friday. Wednesday, Elder Rich came to my area and we found a part member family to start teaching. Elder Rich is only in his 4th transfer in the mission, but is really intelligent and is the Tech elder in the mission. Right after that exchange, I spent the night at their apartment because I was going to be with their roommate, Elder Evans, the next day in his area. I started my mission with Elder Evans in Hemet and I remember the first time we worked together, we talked to a few bashers and a lot of crazies. Fast forward over a year, and we run into a lot of the same. We did find a few new people to teach and I was able to learn a lot from Elder Evans.
That night, Elder Davis and I drove out to Eastvale to start exchanges with the Assistants. I spent the day in Eastvale/Mira Loma with Elder Moloney. Pretty much Mira Loma is their Spanish area, so we spent the first half of the day there just contacting people and setting up some return appointments. A few lessons fell through, but we made the most of our time up until our appointment at 7 with this awesome family. The dad started up a club hockey team in Ontario, so it was fun hearing him talk about it and it brought back all the memories of the MLK weekend hockey tournaments and all the politics that happen on youth travel teams haha. This man and his family have read the Book of Mormon before and used to go to church a lot, but never were baptized. We were able to share a short message and leave him behind with some good invitations. We drove back to Moreno Valley after that and ended the exchanges with Elder Davis and Loveridge.
One of my favorite things from the last few weeks has been working in the YSA branch here. There is just so much potential that is untapped right now and more than anything, we want to grow the branch. We had a few new people come to the branch this last week and it's awesome to see how much the leaders and members of the branch are including them in everything. We are praying for some YSA baptisms because it's what we need out here right now!
We have an area Seventy, Elder Miskin, who came to the YSA branch this last week and he gave us a ride home to our apartment after church. If only our church building was further away, then we would have been able to pick his brain more!
Last night, I read a talk by Elder Faust on missionary work. He said this at the end of his talk:
Do not feel that you must obtain a quota of baptisms to be successful. An old saying teaches that you can count the number of seeds in a single apple, but you can’t count the number of apples in a single seed. The harvest is the Lord’s. Your responsibility is to thrust in the sickle.
I like how simple he put it. It's our responsibility as members to magnify our callings and fulfill our assignments. If we do so, then we will be able to rejoice when the Lord harvests.
Elder Moon
Exchanges with Elder Rich
Exchanges with Elder Evans
Exchanges with Assistants
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